Chapter 5
Chapter Five
ROSA
Max
She shakes her head, the gold hoops in her ears catching the light. "My father's not well. I just got a call from my sister in Kingston." Tears glisten in her eyes, turning them obsidian in the dim light.
I reach across, covering her cocoa-butter-soft hand with mine. "How not well?"
"She doesn't think he'll make it." Her voice cracks like thin ice.
"I'll send you down there on my jet." I raise my palms when her expressive eyes widen in protest. "No argument. You need to get down there as soon as you can, and you don't need the added stress of navigating TSA and cramped economy seats."
"Max, that's too much." Her Jamaican accent thickens with emotion.
"Well, I don't need the Gulfstream right now and I won't for the next few months as I'm chained to my desk here in LA, so go. I'll call Thomas tomorrow and arrange it and I'll get Ross to bring the Bentley around first thing."
Rosa shakes her head, the silver strands in her dark hair catching the light. "You are too good to me, Max," she says, my name rolling off her tongue with the familiarity of thirty years—not "Mr. Kensington," never that.
"Rosa, it's nothing, really." I drain the last of my coffee, the bitter dregs coating my tongue, and circle behind her chair. I bend to hug her shoulders, breathing in the familiar scent of her jasmine perfume. "Godspeed to your father. Let me know how he is when you get there."
She nods. "I promise, Max." Her eyes crinkle at the corners as she adds, "Beneath all that CEO armor beats a good heart. You show that every day.”
"My reputation would be ruined, so don’t let that get around" I say, pulling her in for one more embrace.
Then I retreat to my study, where stacks of quarterly projections and merger proposals for tomorrow's - actually today’s - board meeting awaits, illuminated by the amber glow of my desk lamp, demanding attention I can barely give them now.
I feel for Rosa. Though at 101, after a lifetime of daily cigars since boyhood, her father had a good run. Last week he was still charming the ladies on the beach, Rosa told me. Still, watching a parent slip away cuts deep, regardless of when it happens—something I understand all too well.
I just hope she makes it in time for a final goodbye.